Nineveh summons her picked troops, yet they stumble on their way. They dash to the city wall; the protective shield is put in place. – Nahum 2:5

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 10, 2017): Nahum 2

Nineveh was one of the first cities. It was one of the first places where people congregated together way back in the beginning of the history of the story of us. The city itself is supposed to be built by Ninus (Nineveh means “The City of Ninus,”) but it is unlikely that Ninus ever existed. Rather, historians believe that he is a composite image combining several of the early Assyrian warriors and leaders. Ninus appears on absolutely none of the early lists of the kings of Assyria.) Ninus is supposed to be the one who first trained dogs to hunt, and he was the first to tame a horse so that it could be ridden. It is because of this accomplishment that Ninus is often pictured in Greek mythology as a centaur. And very early on, the city was a cultural center dedicated to the worship of the Assyrian Goddess Ishtar. And for this reason, the people flocked to Nineveh.

While Ninus may have built the city, it was Sennacherib that made the city great. At its height, the city housed as many as 150,000 people within its walls (twice as much as Babylon housed at the same time.) It had an elaborate aqueduct system that furnished water for the city. Sennacherib built a “palace without rival, ” and it is even thought that the original “Hanging Gardens of Babylon” was actually built in Nineveh.

But within a hundred years of the glory days of Nineveh, the city was gone. Death came fast as the Assyrian Empire degraded into a series of civil wars and became ripe for defeat by her enemies. In 612 B.C.E, the fighting was brought to the city of Nineveh. Much of the fighting in the city was done house to house as the invaders came in and massacred all who had not left the city. Nineveh’s defenders staggered from homes to their posts, but they could not stop the disaster that was on the way for the city. Nahum’s prophecy of the best of the troops that the city had to offer stumbling into battle was uncannily correct. The fight came, and the troops could not hold the city. In 612 B.C.E., Nineveh died, and seven years later the Assyrian Empire was also officially brought to an end.

The site of the destroyed Nineveh was left untouched after the city’s final battle. No one inhabited, or possibly even visited, the site for centuries after the destruction of the city - and when archaeologists started to dig into the location of the ancient city, they found numerous unburied skeletons of people that had died on that day when Nineveh was razed to the ground.

At the time that Nahum prophesied of this defeat of the Assyrian empire, it is likely that none of his first readers could imagine such an ending. And the prophecy stands as a warning to all civilizations that believe that they will stand forever. The reality is that we all come with an expiry date – and that is a humbling message. And the only answer to our expiry date is the God who exists without one. Only in him does ‘forever’ find its proper meaning.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Nahum 3